Undersized Urbanite Update: Week 4

My kit for the contest!!! Woot woot! Couldn’t be happier that I can actually begin to do some tangible, rather than digital, work. Can we pause for a moment to see how oh so tiny this house is?!?!?

So small! Not sure what I have gotten myself into with this one! I love quarter scale but, I’m worried it might put me at a disadvantage because of how small it is! Will I be able to photograph, [or even make for that matter], anything that could compete with some of the others in the contest who are working in bigger scales with a better camera? I hope so! My camera surprisingly has an amazing macro lens considering its only a phone, [Samsung Galaxy s3 for those interested], but we’ll have to wait and see.

Obviously the night I got the kit I had to put it together. I considered a dry fit, but didn’t have masking tape and this house is so small that I was able to hold it in my hands to figure out where the pieces went. Not to mention, the creator of the kit, Ani, who I know nothing about either than she lives in the mountains and sells these amazing kits [which she makes herself], via a friend on eBay, makes wonderful instructions.

And diagrams! More than greenleaf sent me with the Orchid! 😉 I fit and glued each of the four rooms.

Once again, admire the small-ness of it all….

I didn’t glue the entryway together though because its super small,

and I haven’t quite decided if I should wallpaper and etc first or after.. probably after, but still better to wait so that it doesn’t end up broken. I also left the rooms separated since the design of the house makes it easy.

I think this way I can get more detail into the finishing of each room by being able to hold it up in my hands reaaaaaallly close to my face, since I can hardly see as it is. They also stack together nicely for storage 🙂

I then primed the rooms;

I did this before I sanded anything to help me highlight any imperfections that might be on the wood, dirt or glue or what not. I find this easier, especially when wallpapering and covering up most of the wood anyways. Why bother sanding more than you have to, when you can just get will poke through your wallpaper? Then sanded and primed again. The rooms are looking more smooth now.

…Ish. lol. smooth-ish. This will all be covered in the end anyways, as long as I’m not getting a sliver while constructing it. I’m happy. Printable Quarter scale wallpaper is hard to find, but I managed to make some of my own using images of real wallpaper from a few different sites.

I think I have a very costal colour palette going on here. Which is good but funny because that was my original palette for the Orchid, however it is turning out to be more neutral [probably because I fear it will be my only 1″ scale house so I need to be able to have a palette that allows me to add lots of minis for years to come!], so perhaps this can be some sort of waterfront home? Maybe on the shores of Toronto, which would be fun since I live in the Greater Toronto Area — aka GTA, or maybe even centre island? [Another Toronto costal area]. Who knows. I will have to take it day by day until I have more of a story to tell. For now, I should at least be happy the kit is out, glued together and primed. That’s lots more than I had done with the Orchid at this point! 🙂 At least I have some stuff to work with and the patterns look appropriate for the scale.

I used some of the cozy cottage furniture to get an idea of space in the kitchen, since thats the only furniture I have in quarter scale, lol.

It seems like a tight space! But I’d rather have the kitchen here with the door than pn the other side. So I’ll have to make due. I thought about adding an inch or so to the walls/floors/roof but I’m not sure how that would look under wallpaper? It would add a considerable amount of space. But I’m not sure if the depth will be too much for this scale?

It’s actually not that bad! but would be quite a task to do! Obviously I have lots to consider over the next week, and I’ll be back soon to let you know how it all goes! 🙂

so cute! so teeny! you are going to have all the mini peeps commenting on how teeny your teenie are LOL. I started out in 1:6 so 1:12 is already little for me. I adore that stacking photo though that cracks me up. I’m sure it’s going to be awesome and am looking forward to watching the progress!